GREENFIELD -- Two Athol residents once again denied charges related to a brutal home invasion in Orange that left an elderly man dead and his wheelchair-bound wife, who later died of her injuries, clinging to life.

Joshua Hart, 24, and Brittany Smith, 27, were arraigned Thursday in Franklin Superior Court on charges of murder, attempted murder, home invasion, armed robbery, conspiracy, larceny over $250, larceny of a motor vehicle, receiving stolen property and unauthorized use of a credit card.

Judge Mary-Lou Rup ordered the two held without bail, and set a June 29 court date for pre-trial hearings. Hart and Smith were indicted by a Franklin Superior Court grand jury in December. The two were initially arraigned in Orange District Court Oct. 14.

Prosecutors say on the night of Oct. 5, 95-year-old Thomas Harty was beaten and stabbed to death, and 77-year-old Joanna Fisher was beaten, nearly suffocated and survived a knife wound to the throat. The older couple's 2003 Toyota station wagon and credit cards were stolen. Five weeks later, Fisher died in the hospital.

Hart and Smith were arrested in a Walmart parking lot Oct. 7 after fleeing to Virginia.

Hart and Smith were implicated in a series of other breaking and entering crimes in Athol in the days before the home invasion, Assistant District Attorney Jeremy Bucci told reporters. The two had been arrested Oct. 3 in relation to a car allegedly stolen from Smith's great-grandmother.

Smith, a heroin addict, had been due to enter a residential drug treatment program on Oct. 7, Bucci said.

Hart and Smith had scoped homes in the area, looking for an older car without tracking technology in which to flee the state, Bucci said. The two also allegedly were looking for money. Hart had hoped to avoid jail time related to previous charges, and Smith wanted to avoid entering a residential drug treatment program, he said.

Harty and Fisher had been watching television in their home when Hart and Smith entered through a garage door, according to prosecutors. The ordeal lasted about two hours. Health care workers arrived the next morning and called for help.

If convicted of murder in the first degree, the defendants face a mandatory sentence of life in state prison without the possibility of parole.